Video: ONE FC 5's Arlovski says call for fourth Sylvia fight was happiest day of career

The way Andrei Arlovski is looking at his next fight, he’s hit the lottery.

Arlovski (17-9) meets Tim Sylvia (31-7) – who has handed him two of his nine career losses – at “ONE FC 5: Pride of a Nation” in a battle between two former UFC heavyweight champions.

But not only does Arlovski get a chance to even up the score with Sylvia at two wins a piece, he’ll have his head coach, Greg Jackson, in his corner – despite Jackson’s big fight the next night cornering Jon Jones against Dan Henderson at UFC 151.

“ONE FC 5: Pride of a Nation” takes place Aug. 31 at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines. It’s available as an online pay-per-view in North America.

Arlovski beat Sylvia in 47 seconds with a heel-hook submission in June 2005 to win the interim UFC heavyweight title. Then Sylvia got his revenge at UFC 59 with a first-round TKO. The two rematched at UFC 61, where Sylvia took a unanimous decision.

Arlovski then went 3-0 to close out his UFC career before leaving the promotion and getting wins in Affliction against Ben Rothwell and EliteXC against Roy Nelson. But then he fell on hard times.

Starting with a first-round knockout loss to Fedor Emelianenko, Arlovski lost four straight, including three in Strikeforce. But he recently rebounded with back-to-back knockout wins in ProElite. And he hopes a win over Sylvia is high-profile enough to get him back on people’s minds.

But Arlovski often wonders, he said, if he should have gone to Jackson much sooner in his career.

“My biggest mistake was that I didn’t start training with Greg Jackson after my loss to Emelianenko on the Affliction card,” Arlovski said.

Jackson actually will be cornering Arlovski against Sylvia in the Philippines – then will fly back immediately to corner Jones at UFC 151 in Las Vegas the next day. Joining him will be UFC heavyweight Travis Browne, who helped Arlovski prepare for Sylvia’s size.

But the chance to make things 2-2 with Sylvia had him happy when the fight was booked after a bout with Soa Palelei on the same card fell through.

“The fact he beat me twice, his name’s on my list, and he’s who I wanted to fight again,” Arlovski said. “When ONE FC said, ‘Now you’re going to fight Tim Sylvia,’ it was probably the happiest day of my professional career.”

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